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Thursday, August 30, 2012

A two-day workshop addressing the “Theoretical Foundations
of Drug and Immune Resistance in Cancer” will be held in Arlington, VA on
November 13 and 14, 2012. Resistance to treatment is a main reason for cancer
deaths and is becoming increasingly relevant in the light of new therapies
based on specific molecular targets and/or specific priming of the immune
response. This resistance can involve genetic changes (most likely selection of
more resistant clones from an existing multi-clonal population), epigenetic
changes (modifying gene expression as a way of bypassing the drug action,
possibly changing splicing patterns as has been seen recently in melanoma), and
tissue-level heterogeneity (the creation of pockets within the tumor which
prevent access). Unraveling the interplay of these different mechanisms so as
to create a quantitative approach to both understanding and most important
defeating these adaptive processes is a very high priority.

The goal of the workshop is to bring the theoretical physics
community and the oncology research community to discuss the state of our
knowledge of drug and immune resistance in cancer. We expect to invite roughly
15 physicists and a matching number of oncologists. The workshop will be two
full days and will feature an extremely limited number of talks followed by long
discussions and brainstorming sessions. All participants will be expected to
attend all the planned sessions. Participants may prepare materials to show
during the discussions. Preparatory work for the workshop, including posting
relevant papers, discussions, and data, will take place through the recently
launched website:

http://physicsandcancer.org . A report on
the outcome of this meeting, together with recommendations for possible funding
opportunities for joint physics-oncology teams to pursue ideas generated at the
meeting, will be posted on the website.